


Diver

by Bookah



Category: ArcheAge
Genre: Adventure, Diving, Salvage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 09:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13808778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookah/pseuds/Bookah
Summary: Bad news for others spells good news for one skin diving daredevil. Unless, of course, it kills her.Rated Teen+ for bare tatas and tush.(Story previously published elsewhere.)





	Diver

Nguyet woke to the gentle bobbing of the boat on a slight swell. She had anchored it within the protective jetties of Austera’s Freedom Port, keeping the worst of the waves from getting to it, but it seemed that she needn’t have bothered. The mild motion of the waves gave her the belief that the slight storm that had threatened the night before had passed with little effect on the ocean or its inhabitants. She could very well have stayed out at sea and avoided the crowded harbor.

At least there was a silver lining, she supposed. She did have some shopping to do. So long as she was in port, she might as well get it taken care of.

Strong ochre colored legs kicked off the sheets covering her before sliding off of the small bunk nestled in the equally small captain’s cabin. Following them she rose to her feet and made a languorous stretch that expressed a clear desire to return to the bed. Resisting the urge, she casually tossed the sheets into a semi-straight configuration on the mattress. A mere sidestep brought her over to the small desk and chair that were the only other furnishings in the cabin. Quick motions swept up the modest bikini top and waist wrap that were her usual concessions to polite society, and a few motions were all it took to cover the brown skin of her hips and chest.

Dressing as complete as she was willing to bother with, she poured herself a cupful of grog and strolled out onto deck. The morning sun greeted her as she drank the watered down rum, reflections of the light bouncing off the small waves in the harbor. Though the sun had not been up even an hour, the day was already promising to be bright and hot, all thought of the previous day’s clouds blown away by the refractions bouncing up to her from the sea’s surface.

Nguyet glanced over at the jetty nearest to her, a mere 100 feet or so away. Foot traffic out towards one of the larger piers was heavy as a large merchantman readied to sail, but the nearest length of fitted stone rising out of the water was empty. She could easily slip the  _ Ladyware _ into the open berth and tie off without too much trouble.

With a shrug, she decided not to bother. Even on a gentle sea tying up alongside could result in an unfortunate bump. Where she was anchored was out of the way enough, and it wasn’t like she had a need to step from ship directly to shore, or vice versa. She set the now empty grog glass aside and with a fluid motion dove gracefully over the rail and into the water.

Nguyet’s history would not have predicted her ease in the water. Born to a mid sized poor family in the deserts of Arcum Iris, the largest puddle of water she’d ever experienced had been the small oasis Hatora settlement had built itself beside. While one could swim in it, it rarely got deep enough for the water to come over the top of your head. Nguyet had been, at best, an indifferent swimmer as a child.

That had changed in her 14th year. A local villager had made entreaties to her parents regarding marriage. The boy had not been a bad sort, but he had been a somewhat lackluster character. Her parents had weighed this for a bit, and then agreed. Their focus had been on his financial state, which promised to be better than theirs had ever been, and not on his lack of a lively nature. With different hopes and dreams when it came to a potential spouse, Nguyet had quietly slipped out in the night and never gone back.

Just a few months later Nguyet had found the love of her life. Only it wasn’t a man or woman that managed to capture her romantic notions. It was the salty taste of the ocean that served strong enough a lure to get her wet. Traveling, she’d come around a bend in a road and gotten her first look at the sea. She’d lost herself instantly in the sight of the vast waters stretching out to the horizon before her. She had not yet known just what it was that she would do to make it happen, but she knew she’d spend the rest of her life rocked to sleep by the gentle embrace of the ocean.

The method she’d found was diving. Only days later she’d come across a group of women who made their livelihoods by diving to the ocean floor and collecting shellfish, lobsters, crab, and other edibles. Occasional windfalls came to these women in the form of a pearl found within an oyster, or a valuable item that had fallen from a passing ship. 14 year old Nguyet had been utterly enchanted by the notion of these “real life mermaids”, and immediately begun diving with them.

Now 17, the girl had grown into both a woman and an accomplished diver. As she parted the water beside the  _ Ladyware _ she left behind almost no splash to mark her transition from a creature trapped in the realm of men to mermaid. As swift, powerful kicks of her legs drove her forward beneath the waves she laughed internally, remembering the day she’d asked why few men dove with the women she’d come to love as family. The answer of “Not enough fat on them!” coming from those lean and athletic women had left her in stitches.

The swim to shore had been a short one. She hadn’t even begun needing air before she broke back into the world above the waves, water dripping from skin the color of teak in beads almost as perfect as the pearl that had bought her a small, old, but seaworthy fishing boat. She padded up the stone steps of the pier, leaving a trail of water behind her as each step slapped the small, short wrap against the back of her thighs. Landfall made, it was time to shop.   
  
  


“Hello, Nguyet. Dahuta’s blessing upon you.”

Nguyet smiled at Egan’s greeting. She’d been purchasing her diving knives from the cat-like grey Firran since her first purchase. She didn’t need to buy replacements often, but when she did he always greeted her by name, with a traditional sailor’s blessing despite his own status as an avowed landlubber who mostly supplied swordsmen. It may not have meant much to most, but for her it was the little things that made business a pleasure.

“Dahuta bless, Egan.” Nguyet padded over, careful to avoid portions of the smithy floor that had not been swept recently. Tough as her feet were, she did not care to test them against slivers of metal and wood shavings that were fresh from the forge. She slid over to the workbench where the weaponsmith was polishing away at a leaf-bladed shortsword. “Do you have anything in my size?” she quipped.

Egan gave her an appreciative once over, though he did so in a way that left her feeling flattered rather than merely ogled. Few men were capable of making it seem like a compliment, one of the reasons she seldom spent much time ashore. Egan, however, managed to add a wicked little twinkle that made her briefly contemplate knives and sheaths of a far more euphemistic nature than the usual business transacted at the smithy.

As if reading her thoughts, Egan twitched his tail and gave her a wink, then set down the blade he was shining. “I think I do,” he purred. He unlocked a small chest set at the back of the table and retrieved a foot long knife with a bone handle. “Try this on for size.”

With a grin, Nguyet slipped it up against her wrap, then tied it in place using the extra string left over from when she’d tied the thin skirt around her hips. When diving she’d holster it in a loop of leather sufficient to keep the blade from moving and cutting her thigh, but which otherwise left the blade exposed to the air to dry when she returned from the ocean floor.  “It looks sexy.”

“So does the knife,” Egan agreed.

Nguyet playfully slapped at Egan’s furred shoulder with a laugh. “Cad.” She patted the blade carefully. “How much?”

“Three gold will be plenty,” the feline commented. “What happened to the last one?”

Nguyet gave a sheepish smile. “I dropped it in a crevice trying to cut an abalone loose. I couldn’t reach it to get it back out.”

Egan waggled a finger at her. “Don’t go losing my knives like that. Even if it does mean a visit from you.”

“Oh, you like my gold and you know it.” Nguyet slapped three shiny coins down on the table.

“Not just the coins,” Egan rumbled, sweeping up the offering.

“Flatterer,” Nguyet chuckled and turned to the door.

“Nguyet. What’s the deepest dive you’ve ever heard of?”

Something in Egan’s voice stopped her. She turned to give the Firran a searching look. “150’ or so?”

He returned the look with an uncharacteristically sober expression. “I had another customer in this morning looking for a sword. It turns out he lost his old one last night. During a shipwreck.”

Nguyet arched an eyebrow.

“That storm that everyone expected to hit us veered off and swept the coast a little southwest of here instead. His ship got caught up in it and went down just a few hundred feet off of Pavita’s Monument.”

“It hadn’t seemed like it would be that powerful a storm.”

Egan shrugged.

Nguyet mused a moment. “They were trying to use the inlet as shelter.”

Egan nodded. “And didn’t make it. According to him the ship was in poor repair and sprung the seams in spite of the mild nature of the storm. He said it was a pity, as the cargo was valuable enough to repair the ship and get things back on track for a crew that had been down on its luck for a while. He had to leave the sword behind as it foundered just inside the inlet’s mouth. Felt bad about it, too. Apparently it was some sort of heirloom.”

“What’s that got to do with diving?”

“Not a thing. I just thought you should know. I’d hate to see you damage that floating wreck you call a boat by hitting some flotsam if you go sailing down that way.”

Nguyet locked eyes with Egan for several seconds, neither speaking. After a few moments, she nodded. “Thanks, Egan. I’ll be sure to steer clear of there.”

“See that you do. Even without a proper tail on it, I enjoy watching your ass as you walk out of here.”

Nguyet laughed and gave him the show he was expecting as she left.

  
  


The waves were stronger just offshore of Pavita’s Monument. She couldn’t see the monument itself. The towering pillar was mounted atop the cliffs that formed the boundaries of the inlet the ill fated ship had been making for when it went down. Her position bobbing at the foot of the northernmost cliff blocked any sight of the stone structure. Still, she knew it was there, and that it would have stood out strongly in the minds of sailors seeking shelter in an emergency.

The only real question was where the wreck lay beneath the waves. The mouth of the inlet was not that large, but it wasn’t small, either. More, the cliff walls rising above her did not stop at the waterline. They continued well below the waves crashing against them. The bottom was deep, here, about as deep as she could recall ever finding up against the shore. And that meant a problem. The deeper the water got, the darker. She could dive right next to the wreck and not see it if it was deep enough.

Of course, if it was that dark, diving on it would be foolish anyway. Not that wreck diving and salvage wasn’t dangerously stupid to begin with. A wreck, covered in broken spars and rigging, with cargo tumbled all about, was a trap waiting to spring. Adding a near blindness to all that made diving go from “dangerous” to “reckless”.

With a shrug, Nguyet cut the engine and climbed down off of the small topdeck above her cabin. She let  _ Ladyware _ slow until it was moving hardly any faster than the current itself would have taken her, then dropped anchor. The heavy metal hook splashed down into the water, to be followed by a long hemp rode. The thick rope ran out for some time before suddenly stopping as the anchor hit the bottom.

Nguyet frowned a bit as she estimated the time it had taken for the anchor to reach the seafloor within the inlet. Deep.  Much deeper than her usual dives. Most of her harvesting had been done at depths no greater than 50’, though occasionally she would go as deep as 75’. She had been to greater depths than that salvaging, but the deepest she’d ever gone was around 100’, and that only long enough to tie a rode back onto a lost anchor. This was well beyond that. In fact, it was deeper than she’d ever heard of anyone diving.

With a gallic shrug she reached behind herself and untied her bikini top, draping it over the railing. This was quickly followed by the wrap, and the bikini’s bottom piece came to rest beside that. Wreck diving was far more dangerous than hunting for sea urchins. Wrecks were covered in fallen rope, shattered timber, twisted metal hooks and protrusions, and a million and one other items that could snag clothing, trapping the diver fatally. No, for this the only concession to “civilized modesty” she’d bother with would be the string tied around her waist, and that only because she was not diving a wreck without a knife at her hip capable of cutting loose any stays she might tangle with.

Nguyet gave the sun a fast glance, assuring herself she had hours yet before the cliffs began to block the light at her chosen anchorage. Satisfied with the amount of time she had left, she dove off the side of the boat and into the waiting waves below. She let herself float back up to the surface, taking a few easy breaths of air, then ducked beneath the water.

A quick flip in the water pointed her downward. She began kicking, pushing herself deeper into the sea, until she found herself able to see the bottom of the  _ Ladyware _ above her. From here she would be able to do a lazy spin in the water, trying to get a feel for the clarity of the water and the chances she’d be able to see the wreck from more than a hand's width away.

To her surprise, she spotted the wreck in seconds.

_ Ladyware _ had sailed right over the wreck, clearing the top of the mainmast by a mere 20 feet. The anchor line floated parallel to the mast only 50 feet off from the end of the still deployed battens. She looked downward to see the entire junk’s hull, far beneath her slowly kicking feet. It sat upright on the bottom, almost completely intact. Only a little damage to the sampan style sails gave any evidence as to the reason the ship had sank.

Nguyet grinned. If it was this well preserved getting inside safely would be simple. She had been told that the ship had sang because of a sprung hull, a state describing a ship whose seams had come apart to allow water inside. She had worried that the junk had suffered far worse damage. Many wrecks suffered from serious breakage that left the holds crushed and inaccessible, or spilled the cargo all over the ocean floor trailing back into even deeper waters. As it was, she risked few dangers.

Smiling, Nguyet began swimming downward. She wouldn’t be attempting any salvage on this dive, but with this fortunate a placement of the wreck, she had plenty of air to do a quick survey of the wreck.

About halfway along the descent she felt and repressed the involuntary urge to exhale, knowing she had plenty of time still. The body simply didn’t like not breathing and, after time, would attempt to start up again if stopped. But after three years of diving she knew just how long she could go without, even if the depth she intended to head to was a bit intimidating, and fought past the reflex with the ease of long experience.

More unpleasant than the “need” to breath was the crushing sensation the water was exerting on her body. Like the breathing, this was something she was familiar with, and able to mostly ignore, even if it was stronger than she had experienced at lesser depths. It was akin to being sat on by a very large nightmare, only without the inability to move. So long as she could continue to swim, the metaphorical demon could sit on her chest all he wanted, she wouldn’t panic.

Fortunately, she’d reached the point she no longer needed to actually swim. While salvaging the anchor previously, she had discovered that beyond about 100 feet the body’s tendency to float changed into a tendency to sink. Rather than burning up the air in her lungs by continuing to kick, she could stretch how long she could stay on the bottom by simply allowing herself to gently ‘fall’ downward.

By the time she’d made it to the deck of the ship roughly a minute after beginning her dive, she was feeling almost euphoric. Certainly she didn’t have any more air than she’d had before, and the desire to exhale and the pressure crushing her body hadn’t gone away. It was simply that something at these sort of depths got into her head the same way a strong bottle of wine could. She felt confident, bold, and capable. 

Without the least bit of hesitation, she headed for the ladder heading below decks. To her surprise the hatch covering it was intact. She’d expected air trapped within the ship would have blown it free during the sinking, given how decrepit the ship had supposedly been. Somehow, however, the hatch remained in place, properly dogged down against the storm by the ship’s sailors.

Nguyet eyed their work. A tarp had been stretched into place over the opening, then nailed down around the edges to keep the worst of the waves from getting in. Dealing with that was simplicity itself. A few careful strokes of the knife she’d only just purchased cut away the canvas, revealing the grating beneath it. The grating was a far more complex problem. Waterlogged and resting within a framework that had warped in the ship’s death throws, the grate was jammed solid within the opening to the ship’s interior.

Nguyet spent nearly two minutes carving away at the grate before a subtle change to her vision caught her attention. The blue colors of the sunlight around her had shifted into dull greys. In her haste to open the grate she’d almost missed the transition. A fish swimming past had distracted her, however, and awoken her to the fact that scales that should have looked yellow instead were the dusky grey color of a thin cloud.

She was running out of air.

Nguyet immediately struck out for the surface, slipping her knife back into the little leather loop on the string around her waist as she went.  She could feel her heart began to speed up as the need for air became more acute, an unwelcome change from the slow, lazy beat it usually carried when she was diving. She had to fight back the urge to let her air out and draw in a fresh breath, as fear edged in around her previous excitement.

She almost cried out in relief when she began to feel the upwards tug that marked her coming back to within 100 feet of the surface. Staring upward she could see the surface, see the way the sunlight bent and broke as it struck the waves before descending down to the bottom.

_ Not long now, _ she told herself,  _ Not long at all, and then all the air I could want. _

Her body argued with her, desperate to start sucking down fresh oxygen right away. She grit her teeth and refused to give in as her vision began to narrow down to a tunnel, all of her attention on the approaching waves.

Air escaped her lungs in a whistle as she breached. She lay back, bobbing on the waves with her face turned to the sky, fighting unconsciousness as she sucked down air that tasted sweeter than any candy she’d ever purchased. Her chest heaved, rising and falling almost as much as the waves washing over her breasts with the work to exchange rotten air for fresh.

_ That, _ she told herself,  _ was a bit too close. _

How long had she been down? Five minutes? Six? She’d known one woman who could stay down an amazing nine minutes when working, though that woman had never ventured to do so in depths any greater than 30 feet. Nguyet herself had never tried staying down more than five minutes, and she hadn’t been working particularly hard even then. This…

She shook her head slowly as the headache caused by a lack of air began fading away. If this dive had taught her anything, it was that she needed to have a plan before she began a dive. Something at the depths she’d descended to mucked with critical thinking, leaving one prone to making poor decisions, like trying to hack apart a giant grate with a knife.

The moment she felt up to the task, Nguyet pulled herself back aboard her boat. It was going to take more than a knife to get that hatch free. Fortunately, she had just the thing for it.

The hooks hanging from cranes on the back of  _ Ladyware _ were intended for transporting large fish up while the boat was in transit to a port. Nguyet had repurposed them for this task, tying off a pair of ropes, one from each hook. She had then tossed the ends of both ropes into the water behind the boat and dove in after them. A second swim down to the wreck had ended quickly, with the ends of the ropes tied into the grate blocking the way inside the ship.

Nguyet started  _ Ladyware’s _ engines up and then powered the fishing vessel forward. She’d only moved it about ten feet when she felt the back suddenly dip downwards.  _ Ladyware _ staggered a moment, then bobbed back into forward motion. Quickly, Nguyet shut the engines back down and took up the slack she’d put into anchor rode, bringing the boat back into its previous position.

A glance at the stern revealed the two ropes still hung from the hooks. Not only were they slack, but they seemed to be growing even more limp by the second, something Nguyet took to be a good sign. She dipped a ladle into a nearby bucket, drawing herself a drink of fresh water, and watched behind the boat.

A couple of minutes later the grate broke the surface, ropes still attached. With a grin at her cleverness, Nguyet dove over the side and swam to it, untying both ropes and inspecting them for any damage. Seeing they were none the worse for wear, she swam back to  _ Ladyware _ with the ends of the ropes, crawling up onto the deck. She quickly tied the ends of the ropes into a pair of nets. A few trips to the hold resulted in a few stones from the ballast being placed in the nets.

Nguyet manhandled one of the nets over the side, watching as it splashed down and sank beneath the waves. Careful pushing brought the other to the railing as well. This time, however, she jumped over the side and into the water herself. Reaching up she took the rope attached to the net in hand, then braced her feet against the hull. A few deep breaths worked to fill her lungs, and then she pushed off with her legs.

The net pulled over the side and splashed into the water, making a rapid descent downward.  Tightly holding onto the rope, Nguyet was dragged down with it. A minute’s worth of air-burning swimming was replaced by a few seconds of sudden, crushing freefall. The change in pressure was hard on her ears, but a few quick “swallows” as she dropped equalized things, leaving her ears comfortable. What mattered to her more than the risk of collapsing her ear drums, by hitching a ride to the bottom she had bought herself extra time before she would be out of air.

The nets had landed only a short distance from the wreck itself, the ropes wiggling in the current just far enough away to not be at risk of catching in the rigging. Satisfied with the positioning, Nguyet released the rope she’d ridden down and swam over to the wreck.

The way down into the hold now cleared, she flipped herself upside down in the water and tucked her head inside for a peak. She hung there, hands holding the edge of the hatch to keep her in place, while her eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness within. Slowly, barrels and crates came into focus, most of them still secured in the same place where they had started the never to be completed voyage. A few smaller crates and barrels had managed to come loose, some to lay on the deck, and a handful bobbed against the deckhead.

Nguyet eased her way inside, taking care not to rush anything. Hurrying things would burn oxygen too quickly, and could potentially dislodge something that could pin her to the deck. At these depths the strange, euphoric feeling of being drunk did not lend itself to critical thought, as she’d discovered on her first dive. Even a momentary snag could be a death sentence under such circumstances. Cautious divers became old divers. Incautious divers didn’t.

The first crate she approached was sealed and tied into place. She pulled her dagger off her hip and cut the ropes away, swimming back as the crate slipped from its moorings to crash to the deck. A little more work with the knife allowed her to lever the lid off, exposing the contents inside. In the dim light she could make out the tops of bottles, corks carefully tied in place with thin wire strands.

She lifted a bottle out of the crate and squinted at it. It took a moment in the gloom, but eventually she was able to make out the writing on the label. She didn’t speak Nuian, the language of the western continent and its hostile inhabitants, but she never-the-less was able to recognize the word “Dewstone”. Her eyes widened, and a grin slipped out in substitute for the air-losing shout she wanted to let loose. If she marked her guess, then the “Dewstone” label on bottles like this meant she was holding a bottle of Dewstone liquor, which was worth a small fortune.

She glanced up from the bottle in her hands to take in the hold. Crate after crate after crate lined the place. If even half of them held bottles of this…

Nguyet did a quick flip in the water in celebration, then set to work finding out how many crates she could haul to the nets on one breath of air.

  
  


Egan’s feline eyes widened in surprise as Nguyet stepped into the smithy, and then he broke into a fanged smile. His once over of her body was a bit less lingering than usual, though she couldn’t tell how much of that was from the clear relief in his eyes and how much from the fact she was, for once, wearing a full shirt and jacket, boots, and proper skirt.

“Good to see you, Nguyet,” he rumbled, voice almost a purr.

“It’s good to be seen.” Nguyet smiled and then propped a hip up against a work bench.

“I was starting to worry that…” Egan paused, then shook his head. “Well, doubtless my worries were foolish. You’re too smart to tangle with a dangerous salvage of questionable legality. You’ve simply been away trading.”

“Of course,” Nguyet smiled. “Just trading.”

The two grinned at one another, each just as aware as the other that Nguyet had never been a trader in her life.

“So, what brings you in today?”

Nguyet cocked her head to the side a bit, as though in thought. “Well, I wanted to purchase another knife from you.”

Egan’s eyes narrowed at her. “What happened to the last one?”

“Oh, I still have it. I just thought a backup would be nice, just in case.” She fished a heavy money pouch out from under the tails of her jacket. “This should cover it.” The pouch made a heavy thunk, the sound of dull metal coins clinking within as it landed on the workbench.

Egan eyed the pouch. “I imagine so.”

“Oh!” Nguyet’s face took on the expression of someone who had just remembered something. “Didn’t you say a customer had come in last week looking for a replacement sword?”

Egan gave her a suspicious look. “Yes…”

“Did he find what he was looking for?”

“He found something he felt was adequate. Said he’d be back later when he had the coin to get something better.”

Nguyet tossed a wrapped bundle over to Egan, who caught it with surprise. “He might like that one. It’s a little souvenir I picked up while trading.”

Egan unwrapped the bundle, revealing a freshly cleaned and oiled blade. The markings on it were old, clearly the signature of a long dead craftsman. He dropped the wrapping, and took a few practice strokes with the sword in his hand, whistling appreciatively. “Yes, I think he will.”

With a grin, Nguyet hoisted herself free of the work bench and began strolling for the door.

“Nguyet.”

She paused.

“How deep was it?”

Nguyet laughed. “210 feet, I’d guess.” She waved and headed out the door, accompanied only by a stunned silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes from the author:
> 
> Though this story is based strongly on one of my characters in the MMORPG “Archeage”, certain liberties have been taken. First and foremost, the game does not actually have a mechanism for freediving. While characters can dive, there is no skill that increases the length of time that an individual can hold her breath. Absent the use of a steampunk version of scuba gear that can be acquired in game, characters who stay under will drown after only a minute or so.
> 
> As to both the depth and the time down Nguyet reaches, these may seem exceptional to most readers. They are, however, relatively common in the very real sport of recreational and competitive freediving. The current records held in the “real world” are 702’ (Herbert Nitsch) and 11 minutes, 35 seconds (Stephane Mifsud).
> 
> Additionally, the game does not have any penalties related to depth. Unlike real life freediving, deep water in Archeage does not come along with the dangers of burst ear drums, the drunk-like state of nitrogen narcosis (and its painful and potentially deadly cousin, the bends), or the body’s unconscious efforts to breath after a certain length of time holding in air (regardless of blood-oxygen levels). Nguyet’s brush with these would be realistic in the “real” world, but wouldn’t exist in the Archeage game engine’s math.
> 
> Speaking of the nitrogen narcosis and the bends, some might ask whether or not Nguyet should suffer from the bends (nitrogen expanding in the blood and muscle tissue, causing potentially deadly “bruising”). 200’ is considered a deep dive by most technical (scuba) divers, and requires a decompression process consisting of numerous stops while rising that can take upwards of 45 minutes (for 15 minutes spent at the bottom.) Why would Nguyet, who dove to this depth, not suffer from the bends after only spending a couple of minutes reaching the surface?
> 
> The answer lies in the difference between technical diving and freediving. Technical divers continuously breath during their dives using the air stored in their tanks. This continually replenishes the supply of nitrogen in the lungs, allowing it to accumulate. Freedivers get one lungful of nitrogen for the entire length of their dive, drastically reducing how much nitrogen can be absorbed by the body. Having said that, it is still possible for freedivers to suffer from the bends if they do repeated deep dives in a short period of time. In Nguyet’s case, she spent time out of the water working on the boat between her three dives, allowing herself to unknowingly decompress each time. Had she popped up and down repeatedly she would have eventually started having serious problems.
> 
> One additional adaptation is that of scale. Given its existence as an MMORPG distances are fairly small in the game. One could “walk” from end to end of the continent of Haranya (where Nguyet lives) in less than an hour. Likewise, the deepest parts of the ocean I’ve ever noticed probably don’t exceed 200 feet. As such the size and depth of places like Pavita’s Inlet have been increased to fit a scale in keeping with a “real world” setting.
> 
> All that being said, diving and deep water salvage do exist within the game, and there are those who make a regular habit of it. It is perfectly possible in game to also recreate the lifestyle of history’s “pearl divers”, as “aquafarming” consists of diving to harvest the bounty of the sea floor. For more about the real world “mermaids” that Nguyet’s life is modeled off of, spend some time reading about Japan’s Ama divers, women who continue to dive to this day, and who did so just as nude as Nguyet is in this story up until the advent of the modern wetsuit.
> 
> One additional note. Some readers may be concerned that I misspelled “rope” several times in this story. In fact the word “rode” is a nautical term specifically referring to a rope used as an anchor line instead of a chain or cable. While it may have been easier to simply use “rope” here, “rode” is used alongside of many of the more recognizable bits of nautical jargon someone like Nguyet would use without a thought.


End file.
